The Paul McCartney Song Where He Sounded ‘Like Mickey Mouse’

Paul McCartney has a good singing voice but rarely makes his voice go too high. He tended to stay in an area where he was comfortable, but he sometimes experimented with his vocals in songs like “Helter Skelter” and “Maybe I’m Amazed”. While recording one song, Paul McCartney attempted to get his voice as high as possible, and he thought he sounded “like Mickey Mouse.”

Paul McCartney thought he sounded like Mickey Mouse on ‘Lonesome Town’

“Lonesome Town” is a song Paul McCartney recorded for his 1999 cover album Run Devil Run. The original version was released by Ricky Nelson in 1958. McCartney brought in a solid band to record the song, including Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour on guitar. 

The former Beatle didn’t want to do a standard remake of Nelson’s version. He tried to take it up another level, literally. He decided to do it in a higher tone, which included bringing his voice to an upper level. In an interview with Laura Gross, McCartney said he sounded like Mickey Mouse and asked Gilmour to sing instead. 

“With that one, I got into the studio fully intending to do it like Ricky Nelson, just a complete remake because I thought I won’t be able to better it. Then I thought I’d just take it higher, sing it in my higher voice. So we did that, and it was going great until we got to the middle, and because I was taking in higher, I was having to sing so high in the middle it got ridiculous. It was like Mickey Mouse. So I tried to take it down, but that didn’t work, it was going to spoil the mood. Then, in two seconds flat, I thought, ‘Dave, you sing the tune, and I will sing the harmony above it’.”

McCartney felt ‘Lonesome Town’ was sad to record after Linda’s death

Sir Paul’s first wife, Linda, died in 1998 after a long battle with breast cancer. The “Jet” singer struggled with his grief and tried to find ways to cope with the loss. One way Paul McCartney tried to move on was by recording songs, old and new. While it would have been funny to hear his voice at Mickey Mouse level, it didn’t fit the tone of a sad song that hit close to home for him. 

Run Devil Run was McCartney’s way of processing his grief for Linda while honoring her memory. In the album notes, he said he wanted to wait a year to figure out what he wanted to do, and he realized a rock n’ roll album was the ideal project. 

“People have said to me one of the things to get over a tragedy is to stay really busy, really busy, but I thought, no, I am not going to do that,” the singer shared. “I see that one, but it’s just too easy. It’s a bit like denial. So, I thought, well, for at least a year, I am not going to do that. So I didn’t. I just did whatever came along, or whatever I felt good about. But I thought, well, maybe after the end of a year, I will start to think of what I want to do, and the immediate project that I had been talking to Linda about was the rock and roll album.”